They call it the Living Root Bridge because it never stops growing. With time, it keeps getting stronger with firm roots digging deeper into Earth. It is over 500 years old and you have to trek some 3,500 steps , cross a village, eat at a shack which has local chips and coca cola (besides lemon juice and pure honey) for sale just to reach this bridge. The water is blue, and I saw the sun set and the stars take over. Sitting on the edge of this huge rock, beside the blue water , it dawned upon me how very liberating travelling can be. I wish I could travel all my life, because with travelling you just keep moving forward – there is no looking back, you know?

This was my first trip with the money I had been saving for a while now, and I wish I could explore the places nearby.

This was my first step to actually living my dream. I actually went trekking, did the thing I have always loved and wanted to do.

I was on my own, ready to take on anything that came my way. I felt that way after a very long time. I actually felt that.

As long as the tree they are formed from remains healthy, they naturally self-renew and self-strengthen as their component roots grow thicker.

You will one day experience joy that matches this pain. You will cry euphoric tears at the Beach Boys, you will stare down at a baby’s face as she lies asleep in your lap, you will make great friends, you will eat delicious foods you haven’t tried yet, you will be able to look at a view from a high place and not assess the likelihood of dying from falling. There are books you haven’t read yet that will enrich you, films you will watch while eating extra-large buckets of popcorn, and you will dance and laugh and have sex and go for runs by the river and have late-night conversations and laugh until it hurts. Life is waiting for you. You might be stuck here for a while, but the world isn’t going anywhere. Hang on in there if you can. Life is always worth it.

Like the Christmas morning.Like that little girl who believed in fairies.Like meeting someone, long forgotten.Like warming your palm on a cup of coffee. Like pouring your heart out while baking a mean chocolate cake. Like the moment when you fall asleep.Like pretending to have a goal in life.Like getting awarded. Like watching others play Spin The Bottle.Like getting a tattoo done.Like learning French. Like eating vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.Like listening to music on trains. Like walking on chilly winter mornings, with nowhere to be.Like an uncontested love for Orange Soda.Like the noise of rain on an umbrella. Like being a 20-something with big, big dreams. Like waiting, not knowing what for, but just waiting.

In helping others you make a cruel sacrifice without even realizing it. You give away a part of yourself that you need the most: Love.

“It is our choices that define who we truly are. Our ability to do something follows thereafter.”

I just happened to ponder over this sentence, today. There is a hidden meaning behind this sentence, I believe. Some kind of a secret. Like an answer to life. Almost riddle-like. When we choose to do something, we work towards it. But isn’t ‘choice’ and ‘ability’ inter-related? Almost like an infinity symbol.

This, further makes me wonder whether I have made the right choices for myself. ‘Right’ in the sense, that I hope I have made the choices that I ought to, which doesn’t break boundaries or a wrong decision that I might later regret. And regret is something I don’t want.

I wonder why it is that I keep wanting some people back in my life. Why, all of a sudden, after years they show up; right outside your doorstep with the most beautiful smile that you’ve ever known (for quite sometime). It makes you want to re-do every conversation that you’ve ever had. Makes you feel hopeful that people do, after all, come back. But wait. No. Reality hits hard. It tears you apart when they get back to you and you realize that it’s not the same, after all. They’ve changed or perhaps circumstances have changed them. They are no longer the person they used to be. Or maybe, they pretend to be someone they always wanted to be. It’s not that you don’t want to maintain the relation you had with that person. You most definitely do. You scream within for all the love. It’s a mutual feeling. Each person feels the exact same thing for the other.But now, something comes in between. Ego? Yes? The cruel world has changed them, somehow. It has made them cold-hearted, indifferent. It has changed them in such a way that what they once called ‘love’ , they now doubt the very existence of the word. And love, my friend, can never be tested. Loyalty can be tested. But, not love. For love is…

Love is something we are all born with. Love is something that I am unaware of. Some just forget in their life-journey what love feels like. It takes someone really special to remind them that they were simply born with it. Some realise it, some don’t, some accept it whereas, there are those who know about it all along but still doubt its existence. They require a miracle and lot of chances to feel it. To rekindle that feeling of love that they once felt very, very long ago. They go through so many hardship in life that it’s not even funny, anymore.

People like that are hard to find. And once found, you will notice that they don’t leave your life easily. I mean, you might not talk to them at all, but they are there.You can feel their presence. All the time. They want to help you, show you the right path, guide you and who knows, maybe even love you back?! But it takes time. All the hard feelings they have bottled up inside them, will melt away…slowly…one layer after the other. And guess what?- You will. Because you wouldn’t have started it in the first place. You wouldn’t be reading it right now. You want it, Somewhere, deep down, in your heart.

Once the door has been opened, one feeling will follow the other. It’s like an over flowing jar of M & M’s: Out spills every bit, each a different color, a different feeling.